The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 3073 by Angharad Copyright© 2016 Angharad

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This is a work of fiction any mention of real people, places or institutions is purely coincidental and does not imply that they are as suggested in the story.
*****

I was still reminiscing about the joys of scouting for abusers when my mobile peeped. The text read, ‘Call me, JB.’

For a moment I wondered who on earth JB could be and I almost had to do a counting on fingers thing while I ran through my phone address book. Nope, only one JB, that maniac Beck to whom I owe my life.

Realising that a land line is more secure than a mobile, they can be intercepted by all sorts of scanner things, I dialled the number I had for him.

“Beck,” was the response to a couple of rings.

“I hope it was you who text me?”

“But of course dear lady, professor,doctor—um—dormouse.”

“It sounded urgent.”

“Possibly. I was talking to a mate recently...”

“How recent is recent?”

“Recent means Brexit, I mean recent...”

“Don’t you start with the Brexit means anything I want it to.”

“If that was an impersonation of Theresa May, it failed horribly.”

“Well it was hardly Boris half-wit Johnson, was it?”

“Pass.”

“Very funny, look here Mr Beck, some of us have work to do even if you don’t. So what’s the goss?”

“I have it on fairly accurate information that your footballing daughter’s birth parent is seeking her son and has hired an investigator to assist in the matter.”

“Oh poo. I didn’t think she had enough money to do that because investigators don’t come cheap, or is that just you?”

“I am so wounded, I offer you my heart and you fire an arrow through it.”

“Mr Beck, less of the histrionics and more of the history, if you please.”

“Lady Wotsit, or is it Professor Thingammy no it’s Dr Doolittle.”

“Get to the point, James.”

“Oh oh, full name, I must be in trouble—I always am when my mother uses it.”

“I didn’t think your mother ever spoke to you?”

“Only if she has to.”

“Stop beating about the bush and get on with it.”

“It was you who mentioned my mother.”

“Only after you did.”

“So you did, so your short term memory is improving.”

“My temper isn’t. What about this person looking for Danielle.”

“Thankfully he isn’t, he’s looking for Daniel Maiden bachelor of this parish, not Danielle Cameron, spinster.”

“You told me that already.”

“So I did, anyway, there are presumably paper trails which could lead him to you, or to her.”

“I would hope most of those would be confidential, medical or Gender Identity Panel, even the school. They should all be very careful about any disclosure without permission or a warrant.”

“Quite, dear lady, that’s how it should be, however, if that were always the case I’d have to work a damn sight harder than I do.”

“You always tell me how hard you work for your money, is this a confession?”

“Why are you a priest?”

“No, I’m a priestess of the Shekinah, so I’m prepared to hear your confession.”

“You what?”

I was about to repeat what I’d said when the door was knocked and Diane popped her head round it and said, “Mr Allenby from accounts is here, professor.”

“Won’t be long.”

She nodded and closed the door.

“What was that?”

“I’m about to have an interminable meeting with the management accountant who looks after my departments.”

“Departments?”

“Yes, I’m effectively dean of the faculty of science but using the term, professor, instead. I’ve got to go, why don’t you pop down for dinner this evening?”

“I could I suppose, what’re you having?”

“Ask David, he might have some idea as he’s cooking it.”

“Okay, see you later.”

Mr Allenby is not the world’s most exciting specimen of manhood, being sixty if he’s a day and sporting a pot belly and hair line which has receded as far back as his occipital bone. He also has a poor fitting denture which whistles on his sibilants, that’s anything involving the letter S. So any sort of conversation is very difficult especially when he keeps talking about science or staff budgets.

I’d love to say we whistled through the meeting but sadly only one of us did that, the other trying desperately to keep a straight face when being asked about sustainable staffing sections. When he left a very long hour and a half later I was possessed of a giggle fit which completely destroyed my eye makeup and rendered me incommunicado for several minutes. Diane found me still giggling five after he’d left. Fortunately she understood my difficulty though by whistling as she said ‘saucepan’ I nearly lost it again.

“Why doesn’t he go and see his dentist?” I asked, tears running down my face. She merely shrugged and took away my dirty dormouse mug. The mug was dirty not the dormouse—goodness, what d’you take me for—a dirty dormouse, doing what exactly? Oh that, it isn’t dirty and the males take about as long as the average human male, about three seconds.

By the time Diane brought me a fresh cuppa I’d repaired my face and looked presentable again, though if she whistles again, I’ll kill her. She didn’t, seeming to know what is funny and what is agony. She also told me my Microbiology professor was waiting to see me with his senior reader. It was in the diary, so I suggested she send them in and do some more teas.

“They’re already drinking their coffees, see some of us know our etiquette, coffee in the morning and after dinner, tea at tea time.” She was gone before I could throw something at her.

The second meeting held no distractions and forty five minutes later we concluded it and I went off to lunch with Tom and Diane. We went in my car and he was interested to hear about both meetings to see how I was coping with my new portfolio. I thought I was doing quite well which he agreed but told me to hold the party line when I saw marine biology who were looking for half a million pounds worth of boat. Currently we shared one with Southampton University but they were looking to alter the arrangement.

During the meal I suggested that Sussex might be open to approaches and urged me to find out, being one of their alumni he thought I might do better than my departmental head who came from Swansea.

We were meeting with our marine geo-physicist afterwards to discuss the shrinkage of ice in the Arctic, which is at frighteningly low levels—this is sea ice—and with the temperature of the Arctic being 20C above expected temperatures and the sea also being above freezing, it looks as if things like polar bears are going to have a hard winter.

They’re amazing creatures who can go for three or four months without eating and who wait for the sea ice to form from which they can hunt seals. As the ice is shrinking at present, some of them could be in difficulties, especially the younger ones who could find themselves becoming dinner for a full grown male who can weigh in at 800 kilos and stand about nine feet tall. (1760 lbs).